The midday sun was unrelenting but paled in comparison to the boiling anger of hundreds of pickets outside the headquarters of streaming giant Netflix on Sunset Boulevard.
Droves of protesters turned up for day one of the biggest strike in Hollywood history on Friday, but there was only one question on people’s lips – where are all the A-listers?
One sign bore the message: “Where in the f*** is Ben Affleck?” Another read: “Your poor Montana ranch! I’m trying to pay my rent, not my third and fourth mortgage and fuel my private jet!”
The industry’s biggest earners – including George Clooney, Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Margot Robbie and Matt Damon – have issued statements supporting the 160,000 members of the actors’ union SAG-AFTRA, who have brought Tinseltown to a halt.
But the stars were nowhere to be seen as I spoke to protesters in the 32C heat.
The strikers fear artificial intelligence will take their jobs and are irate over the refusal of streaming services to pay residuals – payments traditionally made by studios each time a show or movie airs. Many were disappointed at the lack of celebrity boots on the ground.
A jobbing actor – who requested anonymity because he feared getting “blacklisted” – was critical of what he described as “woke” stars who “talk the talk but don’t walk the walk”.
He said: “People like Clooney and others pay lip service to the strike. But when it comes to walking the pavement outside a studio, where are they? They are sitting in their air-conditioned mansions.”
When I ask one woman why she had singled out Affleck on her sign, she shrugged and said: “He should be here. They all should.”
Clooney released a statement saying: “This is an inflection point in our industry. Actors and writers in large numbers have lost their ability to make a living.”
Oscar-winner Jessica Chastain took to Twitter, writing: “We are not afraid of a fight and we will not back down.”
Others have been more proactive. On a picket line in New York, Oscar-winner Susan Sarandon said: “AI will affect everybody. There’s always been the feeling that if it isn’t solved now, how do we ever solve it?
“If you don’t have the foresight to put something in place for the future, you’re screwed. It’s clear that nothing is going to change from the top down, it’s going to be up to us at the bottom.”
On Thursday, stars including Emily Blunt, Cillian Murphy and Matt Damon walked off the red carpet at the London premiere of their movie Oppenheimer after news of the strike action broke.
But the A-listers were exceptions. Leonardo DiCaprio was spotted on a yacht off St Tropez in the south of France on Friday.
And the Duchess of Sussex, once one of SAG-AFTRA’s most famous members as an actress in the TV series Suits, was spotted shopping at a farmer’s market near her home in Montecito, California.
While it is unclear whether Meghan maintained her union membership after becoming a royal, one actor told me: “It sure would give people a huge boost if she would show up. This is a fight for our survival and the eyes of the world are on us.”
He added: “It’s a shame that actors who have made millions from this business are not using their fame in a positive way.
“Jennifer Aniston lives less than five miles away from Netflix’s HQ and Brad Pitt has a place close by. Where are they?”
Union leader Fran Drescher, best-known for her role in the Nineties sitcom The Nanny, was unperturbed by the lack of celebrity support as she toured the studios rallying her troops.
Outside Netflix, she was greeted by rousing cheers. As I joined the throng of TV crews surrounding her, she told me: “The fight is starting here in Hollywood but this is a bigger fight than just Hollywood. It’s happening across all fields of labour where employers put profits before people.
“If we don’t nip this in the bud, we’ll all be at risk of losing our jobs to machines.”
The actors have joined 11,000 members of the Writers Guild of America who have been on strike since May.
The strike is expected to cost billions in lost revenue and may drag on until the end of the year.
“The rich stars will be fine, but those of us at the bottom of the heap, which is most of us, are going to struggle,” another young woman told me.
“I’d like to see people like Clooney put his money where his mouth is and start a relief fund to help those of us in his industry when we can’t afford our rent.”
Watching the protests unfold outside studios such as Disney, that over recent years have prostituted themselves to a woke agenda, is a surreal experience.
While many expected the battle against AI to start on the factory floor of a blue-collar industry like car manufacturing, most surprisingly, Hollywood is the first to confront it head on.
Disney and Paramount are already using AI to write scripts, and studio bosses have prompted outrage with an offer to pay actors a one-off fee of about $287 to use their likeness in perpetuity.
Unions are demanding strict regulations over the use of AI and called the financial offer “derisory”.
For actress Joely Fisher, the fight against AI is personal.
Her sister, Carrie Fisher, Princess Leia in the Star Wars movies, was the first A-lister to “come back from the dead” after she died of a heart attack in 2016, aged 60, just months before she was due to start filming Star Wars: The Rise Of Skywalker.
Film-makers used previously shot footage of her to digitally implant the dead actress into scenes.
Her sister said Star Wars producers negotiated with Carrie’s daughter to use Carrie’s image and paid the late actress’s estate but added that studios are now proposing they be allowed to use a dead actor’s image in perpetuity without consent or compensation, something Joely called “unacceptable.”
As the strike began, Matt Damon was a noted absentee – enjoying a swanky meal out on Friday night with his wife Luciana Barroso and fellow A-lister Liam Hemsworth.
However, Lord Of The Rings actor Sean Astin joined chanting protesters outside Netflix’s offices as did Titanic actress Frances Fisher and Parenthood actress Sarah Ramos.
In New York, film director Olivia Wilde, who dated singer Harry Styles until last year, was seen holding a placard.
Ted Lasso star Jason Sudeikis and Josh Gad, who voiced snowman Olaf in Disney’s Frozen movies, also joined picket lines.
Gad said: “As we stand on the precipice of the uncertainty of what AI can represent to all of us in this industry and beyond, it is imperative that we ensure we are protected against the inevitability of the cost savings and ease of use that this seismic technology represents to these corporate entities.”
Disney boss Bob Iger, who just signed a £41million two-year deal, has drawn ire. One man held a sign depicting him as Marie Antoinette with the words: “How about sharing some of the cake, Bob?”
Disney has lost £700million in the past year thanks to flops such as The Little Mermaid.
Iger had said the strike is “not realistic, uncivilised and disruptive”. Joely Fisher said: “That’s b*******! These people are making hundreds of millions of dollars off our backs and if we want a sliver of that going forward, it’s not unreasonable or disruptive.”
Jenny Fumarolo, who worked on the most recent Indiana Jones film, The Dial Of Destiny, says: “I’ve been in this business for 25 years. It’s a sea-change moment for the industry. A lot of my friends in the UK are out of work.
“For the tech companies, entertainment is their side hustle. Apple and Amazon made a fortune from tech and now they are trying to turn our art into pure commerce. It’s hideous. They don’t want to share the profits.”
Nicole Pacent, who appeared in Westworld, Criminal Minds and CSI: Vegas, observed: “Actors’ contracts haven’t changed since the 1980s. That isn’t right.”
Her friend Briana Venskus, who had a role in TV series The Walking Dead, added: “It’s impossible to make a living. We want to work, we’re not afraid to work, but we want to be properly compensated.”
Union boss Ms Drescher has accused the studios of stalling negotiations to allow major promotional tours for summer blockbusters including Barbie to take place.
Meanwhile Equity, the British actors’ union, which represents 47,000 performers, has warned they are keeping a “very close eye” on any attempts to move productions to the UK.
In the US, there will be no more films or TV shows written or produced, and actors cannot give interviews, do commercials or appear on talk shows.
They cannot make personal appearances or walk the red carpet, meaning events such as the upcoming Emmy awards are likely to be scrapped.
A senior Disney executive told me: ‘The studios are in no rush to settle. They will wait it out until the actors get desperate.
“There is enough in the can to keep rolling out new shows and films for months. The smart money is on the actors blinking first.
“When you face losing your home, that’s a pretty powerful incentive to settle.”
Such commercial cynicism belies Hollywood’s carefully nurtured image as the world’s ultimate dream factory.
https://news.google.com/rss/articles/CBMioQFodHRwczovL3d3dy5wZXJ0aG5vdy5jb20uYXUvdHJhdmVsL2FtZXJpY2FzL3dyaXRlcnMtc3RyaWtlLWhvbGx5d29vZC1hLWxpc3RlcnMtbm93aGVyZS10by1iZS1zZWVuLWFzLWFjdG9ycy1nby1vbi1zdHJpa2UtdG8tZmlnaHQtYWdhaW5zdC10aHJlYXQtb2YtYWktYy0xMTI5MjM2MdIBpQFodHRwczovL3d3dy5wZXJ0aG5vdy5jb20uYXUvdHJhdmVsL2FtZXJpY2FzL3dyaXRlcnMtc3RyaWtlLWhvbGx5d29vZC1hLWxpc3RlcnMtbm93aGVyZS10by1iZS1zZWVuLWFzLWFjdG9ycy1nby1vbi1zdHJpa2UtdG8tZmlnaHQtYWdhaW5zdC10aHJlYXQtb2YtYWktYy0xMTI5MjM2MS5hbXA?oc=5
2023-07-16 03:21:00Z
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